By David Farrier
The gaming industry has seen a huge growth in the last 10 years.
That's everything from playing strategy games on your computer through to waving your arms around with a Nintendo Wii, or maybe you just like shooting things on your Xbox or PlayStation.
Or, if you're in the minority, maybe you do none of these things.
Regardless, there's never been a particularly comprehensive study into who's playing games in New Zealand and how they're playing them.
Until now.
The Interactive New Zealand 2010 (INZ10) report conducted on behalf of the Interactive Games & Entertainment Association (iGEA) by Bond University has conducted the most comprehensive study of its kind to be undertaken in New Zealand.
3386 people were surveyed – 1958 were gamers and 1428 identified themselves as non-gamers.
Once upon a time, strategy games focused on getting a frog from one side of a river to another – now they focus on interplanetary relations.
Action games were based on shooting pixelated Nazis – now we're in the middle realistic war zones.
And as the games have changed, so has their reach and popularity.
“88.5 percent of homes in New Zealand have a device for playing video games,” says Dr Jeffrey Brand, of Bond University.
“What I was very surprised to discover was 100 percent of houses with children under 18 had a device for playing computer games. That’s the first time anywhere I’ve observed that kind of finding. It shows a household with children is a gaming household.
“I think most people [think] the average gamer [is] male, is a teenager, is antisocial, and for lack of better description, [is] backwards! In fact the reality is the average gamer is an adult.
“Seventy eight percent of New Zealanders who play are over 18 and I think that shatters illusions in conversations about games.”
Indeed, the original geek who grew up with games has now matured and chances are, has a family.
After all, there have been seven generations of consoles. The first generation in the 1970s looked a bit like this:
Generation seven are the Xbox 360s, the PlayStation 3s and the Nintendo Wiis.
“What’s happened is first generation of gamers are now parents, many of them parents of teens, and they have a higher literacy of games and are more open to using them in the home,” says Mr Brand.
The survey reveals so much, it's hard to know where to start, but there are quite a few interesting numbers:
- The average person who plays games is 33
- 44 percent of gamers are female, 56 percent are male
- The average gamer has been playing for 12 years
- Non-gamers are, on average, 40-years-old
- 82 percent of parents are present when their children buy a game
And while it's often said the games industry makes more money than movies and music - we now have proof.
In New Zealand in 2009:
- Cinema box office takings totalled $169,970,000
- CD sales and digital downloads totalled $51,708,700
- Sales of video games and consoles totalled $170,149,000
Games win.
Click here to see the full report.
Of course saying the average gamer is 33 doesn't mean they're all 33. The survey revealed children as young as three are partaking in video games.
It’s a reminder to us that gamers are everywhere – they're not freakish, or geeky. In 2010, they're just bog-standard normal.
“The oldest gamer in this study was 85. So I think it’s safe to say the average gamer is like the average citizen,” says Mr Brand.
The study proves beyond doubt that Michael Laws was wrong when he famously quoted: "Gamers are a very unusual group of people. If mass murder was ever to be committed in this country, it would be committed by a gamer."
Game over.
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